Friday, December 6, 2013

Training Glossary

1.5 Rep MethodYou perform Bench Press (Barbell)Images from WikipediaBench Press (Dumbbell)Images from WikipediaDrop SetYou hit muscle failure on a set and instead of terminating the set you drop the weight enough so that you can complete more reps with the same exercise. Often times this is done twice after the initial failure. See Mechanical Drop Set.

Example: You curl 30lbs to failure for 10 reps. You immediately curl 20lbs to failure for 5 reps. You immediately curl 10lbs to failure for 3 reps.

Muscle hypertrophy involves an increase in size of skeletal muscle through an increase in the size of its component cells. Hypertrophy can be broken down into two types of categories: myofibrillar and sarcoplasmic. Each of these specific types of muscle hypertrophy will result in increasing size of cells, but not of equal effect. Sarcoplasmic hypertrophy is focused on increasing the actual size of the muscle, and less on increasing strength. Myofirbil hypertrophy will focus more on strength increase and less on an increase in the size of the skeletal muscle.

Generally speaking higher rep work (8-14 reps) will lead to more sarcoplasmic hypertrophy whereas lower rep work (1-5 reps) will lead to more myofibrillar hypertrophy.

Mechanical Drop SetYou hit muscle failure on a set and instead of terminating the set you switch to a more mechanically advantaged version of the lift so that you can complete more reps.

Example: You incline bench press 135lbs to failure for 10 reps. You immediately adjust the bench to a flat bench press and perform 5 reps to failure with the same 135lbs. You immediately adjust the bench to a decline bench press and perform 3 reps to failure with the same 135lbs.